AOL and Intel will reportedly announce next week that owners of the Intel Viiv powered Media Center PC will soon be able to send downloaded video to their plasma screen or LCD TVs. Michael Kanellos, editor at large of News.com, cited unnamed sources close to the companies in his post on the news.
This is the logical next step in the world of big vendor movie downloads and AOL looks like they’ll beat Apple’s iTV to the punch. AOL Video already has some of the most extensive deals with movie studios of anyone in the video on demand space. Viiv owners will also be able to download and play music, according to Kanellos.
The Viiv is a combination of various hardware and software including DRM and a network card. Intel has entered into deals with a number of content providers to allow delivery of media through Viiv.
Not the first time… Akimbo and Movielink already provide content through Windows MCE. AOL obviously has a larger reach and substantial brand recognition and ‘Viiv’ is a marketing term.
Thanks Dave.
Now if only everyone owned a plasma or LCD tv!!!
Embed software on a chip that allows direct streaming and interaction/decoding of data from a specific protocol. Make that software available to hardware producers (i.e. DVR manufacturers) and to companies such as AOL and Amazon. One simple protocol + many different companies = user ease.
I guess I’m thinking too far into the future – most simple devices don’t support the same formats such as mpeg… It would, however, work with technology such as DVR’s (TiVo, etc.).
Dave, ViiV is a marketing term for what?
@Michael: Viiv is Intel’s “Digital Living” platform, which is basically a Windows Media Center PC with some custom software so that it acts like a media hub to multiple (wireless) devices. The idea is that media gets downloaded to the PC computer and then served up to -say- a set top box attached to a TV.
Being first to the punch on this is good for Intel/AOL, but to beat apple they will really need to have a slick, remote controllable interface. Especially in the living room, usability is everything.
Brilliant. This is another avenue for AOL to capitalize in Ads.
They just announced the slick, remote controllable interface for MCE…
1 inch think, lightweight, wireless and rechargable backlit…
http://www.micr...ls.aspx?pid=080
Robert, I think that’s called UPnP AV or DLNA. Unfortunately, creating new multi-vendor network protocols takes about 5 years longer than creating a proprietary single-vendor system.